Distraction
by Yes-4-Yuffentine
Summary: Maria comes across Robin drilling a couple of younger De Noirs one day. She believes in leading by example. (Maria x Robin, Friend to Lovers)


Maria comes across Robin drilling a couple of younger De Noirs one day. She's in the forest looking for some herbs when Allen finds her, and to stop her accidentally walking into their gunfire, he takes her back with him. Maria has long since learnt that at least one or two of Robin's friends will have some injury or another, so she busies herself checking and re-bandaging old wounds, Jonathan's this time. Robin, intent on a small group of De Noir boys, hasn't noticed her, and she doesn't want to disrupt them. Until that is, when she's finished retying Jonathan's bandage, she hears him lecturing them about the importance of being aware of their surrounding and shooting accurately even in the midst of more than one distraction.

"Can you?" She breaks in. He looks round at the sound of her voice, momentarily surprised before his expression melts back into its usual one of cocky confidence.

"Can I what Princess?" He asks with that self-assured smirk of his.

"Can you shoot straight when distracted?" She elaborates, hands now on her hips.

"Of course I can," He frowns back at her. He's done it many times in front of her. No doubt his three students have heard stories about his fearsome reputation protecting her; perhaps that's why they look at him (and her) with those slightly awed expressions.

"Well perhaps a demonstration would help," Maria suggests, folding her arms. Robin's students sneak gleeful looks to each other at this suggestion, or perhaps it's at her casual interruption of him...Obviously they also find Robin slightly intimidating. But Maria never has. Or at least, she never let it show if she did.

"By all means," Robin answers with a compliant open armed gesture.

Allen, smirking, hands Maria a pistol and she steps up to Robin to pass it to him. Their hands brush, and he's looking at her with a bemused expression, as if asking what she's hoping to achieve here. She just raises her eyebrows at him expectantly.

As Robin prepares the pistol for a shot, his friends start bustling about, making lots of noise and generally being nuisances. The three young boys look on, grinning excitedly. One particular jeer, about Maria herself, almost has Robin turning and pointing the pistol at his friends instead of the target he's sighting. The perpetrator, Will, winks at Maria, and she blushes, turning her gaze back to Robin.

It's an open secret how close they both are. They spend a great deal of time together, most of it in the forest, but he's become a familiar face at Moonacre Manor and she at the De Noir castle too. They were so different in so many ways, such an unlikely and unexpected pair; but the bond that had been forged between them finding the pearls and breaking the curse had led to a friendship far stronger than anything else. Right from the beginning, even in those early days, when there had still been tension and awkwardness between their two families as they learnt to overcome generations of enmity, Maria and Robin had overcome the challenge quickest. Just as it was an accepted fact of life that the sun would rise each morning or that not so long ago, the Merryweathers and the De Noirs had hated each other, it had now long been an accepted fact across the whole valley that when the Moon Princess was abroad, if he wasn't already by her side, then Robin De Noir wouldn't be far from her.

But there's been a change in their friendship for a while now. She's grown up into a young woman and he's matured far beyond the boy she first encountered in the woods. Now there's an undercurrent of tension between them. Their relationship has always been intense- how could it not considering how it had begun? But recently she's began noticing his strength, dreamt of intense moments surpassing mere friendship. She's seen his own eyes following her from a distance. She's eighteen now, going on nineteen and she's aware that she's developed the tempting figure of a woman. But Robin's gaze is the only one she cares for, the only one that doesn't make her uncomfortable. Although he clearly can't help noticing her sometimes, his gaze isn't leering like that of the so called gentleman Loveday and Miss Heliotrope introduce her to. His is just deep and intense and longing. They're both aware that they're teetering on the edge of _only _friendship now.

So all it takes is the barest caress of her lips, the whisper of her breath on his ear as she leans up in the moment he's about to fire...

The shot goes wide, missing its target by several feet.

His friend burst into jeering laughter, and Maria slips away back into the forest, her eyes dancing with merriment and mischief.

_-Distract-_

She should have known he'd have his revenge.

A few days later finds her playing a complicated piece at the piano in Moonacre Manor. She's engrossed in the music, sheets of it sit open before her, but she barely needs them. The music rises up within her and she gives life to it though her fingers which move swiftly up and down the keys in complicated patterns.

She stops abruptly when he makes his presence known, gasping in surprise.

"Robin!"

"Oh, no Princess, please, don't let me _distract_ you," She can hear the smirk in his voice, the challenge, so she turns defiantly back around to her music. Her fingers slide back along the keys, and when he merely continues to watch her from a distance, she eventually relaxes, almost forgetting his presence and losing herself to the music once again.

This is just what he wants though. He's a hunter, he's spent years tracking animals in the forest, and he's as silent and stealthy as someone can be. She has no chance of hearing him as he approaches her. And he starts where she did, leaning down where she had leaned up and nuzzles the shell of her ear.

She jumps and there's a discordant sound as she misses a note, but she quickly recovers it.

"Oh, very good Princess," Robin whispers, smirking as his hands settle on her waist. But he's far from finished; his lips glide down along the edge of her ear and her breathing becomes erratic. He continues, traces ever so slowly, _sensually_, down her neck, and she can't help tilt her head to the side, exposing more pale skin to his dangerous lips...But still, her fingers dance on, the music never faltering. He has to admire her, her focus, and he smiles against her neck. He's almost reached the base of it now, and when he does, he pauses a moment, lets the tension, the apprehension build as she wonders, waits, _wills _him to carry on.

The graze of his teeth and swirl if his tongue along her collar bone undoes her. The piano echoes discordantly as her hands fall away from the keys and he smirks triumphantly. There may not have been an audience to witness her defeat like there was for him, but there is a red mark marring her pale skin when he pulls away.

Not that Maria cares about winning or losing. Things have gone way beyond that now. Any smug comment of his is lost when she whirls round in her seat and yanks him abruptly down by his scarf and kisses him. He instantly forgets his victory and responds. This isn't a game either of them can compete at as self-control is something they both lack where either of the other is concerned. She is still pulling him and before he completely loses his balance and sends the both of them crashing backwards into the piano, he twists and somehow drops down onto the bench, barely breaking contact with her. She moves into his lap and he can barely contain the groan as a shudder runs through him at the feel of her there. His arms wrap tightly around her and hers are around his neck, hands deep in his curls, his hat knocked carelessly aside.

He can't help but think that the door is wide open for God's sake, anyone could walk in, they're right by the window in full view of anyone who might be in the gardens, but still, neither seem to be able to stop themselves, to care as their lips crash furiously against each other in a kiss that's been building for a long time, possibly since they first met. Their bodies shift trying to get closer. She rises up slightly, her hips pushing against his and he snatches desperately at them, begging her to stop because he can barely control himself as it is. She gasps into his mouth and his tongue slides past her own.

Luckily they have some warning of being interrupted. Roused by the sudden halt in her music, Miss Heliotrope calls out to Maria as she walks down the corridor towards the music room. Robin manages to extricate himself from below her with some difficulty, but doesn't break contact with her lips until the last possible second, diving through the side door into a room that is miraculously empty.

"Are you okay my dear?" He hears Miss Heliotrope ask Maria with some concern, "You look very flushed,"

"I'm fine Miss Heliotrope," She answers mildly, and Robin is amazed by what he can only assume is outward composure. His on the other hand is non-existent, and much harder to hide. He breathes heavily and has to banish the memory of her hands, the feeling if those arousing tugs of his hair, the slide of her body against his own. Oh that lapse of control is going to haunt him for days and night to come...

Without a doubt he loves her. She's fiery and bold and irresistible. He's sure they'll be more stolen moments in the forest together from now on, and she'll make them just as tempting. In fact he _knows_ she'll take advantage of that, she's so impatient and she'll try and persuade him out of what will have to be control on his part. They've grown more alike over the years; she's not as proper and ladylike as she behaves, but he's not as wild and careless as everyone believes either. They've both always been stubborn, but he swears he'll do things right for her.

Piano music strikes up again and Robin grins, replacing his hat and twirling the ribbon he stole from her hair through his fingers.

Oh yes, by God he'll do right by her.

* * *

So the beginning is clearly inspired by the scene from Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, but Robin and Maria aren't so very unlike Robin and Marian anyway. There's a perfect AU right there...anyone?

I've never seemed to outgrow my love of this pairing. Maria is a bit young in the film, but it's the potential that I love so much, given how it's set in the past, the enemies/friends/lovers dynamic and the magical setting. This isn't actually the first piece I've written for them, I've got notes at various stages for about different oneshots ranging from 1000 to 10,000 estimated words in length. But this is the first one I finished, which is surprising as I've never written in third person present tense before, but it came together surprisingly quickly and in a linear fashion for once. Maybe its fitting that it's the first one I've posted, since its quite different to the others I've started, and may be the only one I finish, since life gets in the way. But I really do hope to get some more pieces up. There really ought more completed and new stories for such a great pairing!

Since this is my first Moonacre fic, I would love any feedback so please do let me know your thoughts! I'm quite interested to learn the size of the fandom behind the pairing too- and eager to discuss everything and anything about them with like minded-folk!


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